Mrs. Lamedman is my mother...

This has been going on for awhile, but I finally said something. I'm at the grocery store, and I swipe my club card to take advantage of all the fabulous discounts they give "valued" customers. The only thing that card is good for is getting a free sandwich once every 2 years...but I digress....

I guess it's in the Employee Handbook that the cashier must thank the customer by name and tell them how much they've saved. I like this store. I like their deli section; I love the bread they use for their sandwiches; they make great Oatmeal Raisin cookies, and their roasted chicken is pretty darn good. Their produce is too expensive, but I can go somewhere else for that.

Anyway, every single solitary time I go to this market, it's the same thing. I swipe my card, and at the end of the transaction they say, "Thank you MRS. (insert the most mangled version of my last name you can possibly think of.) If you're reading this and DON'T know how to pronounce my last name, please learn...it's not that hard. It breaks down into 3 syllables. Don't be lazy...figure it out.

Usually, I ignore their mispronunciation of my name. And I ignore the fact that they ASSUME every time that I'm a MRS. I don't want to get into a big deal over a seemingly stupid issue. But every clerk does it. EVERY TIME! They assume I'm a Mrs. Well, you know what they say about assuming, don't you?

Yesterday, it happened again. And I would have ignored it again, but this cashier was fighting the good fight trying to pronounce my name correctly. She said, "Thank you Mrs. Lamerhead....no, no that's not it....thank you Mrs. Lauderdale, no, no, no...Mrs. Lamerrness? I wanted desperately to let it go, smile, nod, get the hell outta there...but she finally said, "how DO you pronounce this?" I told her.

"It's Lamedman. Just like it's spelled. Lam/ed/man. Pretty easy. Trips off your tongue."

"Oh yeah," she says. It is easy. Thank you Mrs. Lamedman."

And that's when I lost it.

"It's not MRS! Mrs. Lamedman is my mother. I am single. Do you see a ring? Why do you just naturally assume I'm a Mrs?"

I felt a little bad but not totally. I mean she got the brunt of my pent-up frustrations because of all her fellow store clerks doing the very same thing she had done....I had never said anything before, but she started it.

"Oh," she said. She looked startled. But then she smiled. "I'm single too." I'm a Miss or a Ms. What do you like?"

"I like Debbie."

"But what do you like to be called?" She was an idiot. I had tried to give her the benefit of the doubt, but she was just plain dumb.

"Have a great day, " I said ignoring her last question. I wanted to get out of there....apparently I was surrounded by too many married women who liked when the clerk called them Mrs. So and So.

If I were really pissed, I wouldn't go back to that store again. I would boycott. I would take my business to a single-friendly establishment. But we all know that I'm not going to do that. In the end, it's not that big a deal. And the truth is, they really do have the best roast chickens, Mrs. Lamedman!